No benefits from schemes for Minority Students.

On 27 Feb 2013 : The Officials of the Jan Jagran Samiti Maharashtra and the students staged demonstration and later submitted a memorandum to the divisional commissioner for providing uniforms, scholarships and other facilities to the students of the Minority Communities, in Aurangabad.

Mr. Mohsin Ahmed and Members of Jan Jagran Samiti along with the Students belonging to the Minority Protest outside the Collector’s Office

The Jan Jagran Samiti Maharashtra resorted to protests from Shahgunj to the collector’s office here on Tuesday demanding uniform, scholarships and attendance wages for Minority Students. The state government had initiated a number of schemes for minority abd socially backward students aimed to minimize the dropout ratio of such children. “The Government has sanctioned the funds through this scheme for the Minorities, but they are not benefiting from it,” president of the association,

Mohsin Ahmed said “The scheme is not being implemented properly, and hence the funds sanctioned by the government have not reached the children yet,” he added.

He said it has been more than eight months now since the funds for the scheme was sanctioned.
Ahmed said,”The government had also allotted separate funds to provide uniforms for students and attendance wages of Rs. 2 per day in Order to Increase the attendance of the students and to encourage them to take education. The scheme was to be provided with school uniforms from the Aurangabad region in 2009-10.”

The Minority development department provided funds to the tune of Rs. 37.20 crores to the directorate of minorities and adult education, Pune, to implement the scheme of providing minority students with free uniforms, in 2009-10 and 2010-11. However, following a query under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the department informed Ahmed that since scheme could not be implemented, the funds had to be returned to the Government.

The Government had released an amount of around Rs. 14.69 crore for two uniforms per student for the year 2009-10 while the amount sanctioned for the year 2011-12 was around Rs. 13.50 crore. Ahmed added.

He further said that for the current academic year an amount of around Rs. 18 crore has been sanctioned for about 6.25 lakh students, which has still not been utilized.

This News has been Featured in both the English Leading Newspapers of India – Lokmat Times and the Times of India.